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When do you need to think about colorectal cancer screening? It could be sooner than you think.
You can reduce your risk of colorectal cancer by:
Getting screened
Eating a healthy diet
Avoiding alcohol
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People without a family history of colorectal cancer should begin screening at age . If you have a family history, you may need to start screening sooner. There are many options for screening, including lower-cost at-home tests. Talk with your healthcare provider about when to start screening and the best screening option for you.
Not smoking
Exercising
Learn more at uvahealth.com/colonscreen or email your questions to crcscreening@virginia.edu. Maintaining a healthy weight
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INSIDE 5 THE HERITAGE CENTER Learn about Andrea Douglas and the team at the African American Heritage Center. 9 CHRIS THE COMEDIAN Get to know Chris Alan who retired from the Air Force, settled in Charlottesville and launched his comedy career.
22 HBCUs and WIND ENERGY Milton Steppe discusses how HBCUs are being mined for talent in the Wind Energy sector by major companies.
Back Row From Left to Right: Leslie Scott-Jones, Sherry Bryant, and Leah Puryear. Seated: Andrea Douglas Vinegar Hill merch has partnered with Discover Black C-Ville to provide merch for those who want to celebrate and lift up the experience of Black people in Charlottesville, past, present, and future. Discover Black C-Ville was created to tell modern, historically accurate, and inclusive Black stories in Charlottesville and Albemarle County. Authenticity and ownership are key aspects of these stories. This mission is in direct alignment with that of Vinegar Hill and it makes perfect sense for us to collaborate. We are a media organization that just so happens to have dope merch and now we are adding Discover Black C-Ville Merch. Get the mag, buy the mech, join the conversation. Buy at: www.vinegarhillvintage.com
Vinegar Hill Magazine is a space that is designed to support and project a more inclusive social narrative, to promote entrepreneurship, and to be a beacon for art, culture, and politics in the Central Virginia region. | Contributing Writers Milton Steppe. l Photos by Eze Amos and Phil Provencio unless otherwise specified. Advertising and Sales Manager(s) SteppeMedia Publisher Eddie Harris Layout & Design Sarad Davenport © 2021 Vinegar Hill Magazine. All rights reserved. w w w. v i n e g a r h i l l m a g a z i n e . c o m | V I N E G A R H I L L M A G A Z I N E 3
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Things Come Together A Story of Hope & Heritage
By Sarad Davenport | Photos by Eze Amos
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r. Andrea Douglas describes herself as an art historian specializing in works of the African Diaspora. Anchored in a deep modesty she said, “I took the thing that I loved most in my life and made it my life.”
The child of Jamaican immigrants, Andrea and her sister came of age in a home that was steeped in the arts and highly political. Andrea’s father was a staunch member of the People’s National Party (PNP), which is the democratic socialist party of Jamaica. At her childhood home in Queens, New York, it was not uncommon for Michael Manely who would become Jamaica’s fourth Prime Minister to stop by. Andrea interjected, “My father was proudly Jamaican. The only people who entered our home were Jamaican.” Andrea’s father grew up in Trenchtown, the re-
nowned neighborhood located in the St. Andrew parish in Kingston, the capital city of Jamaica. While we may know Trenchtown as the birthplace of Bob Marley, Peter Tosh, and the father of Hip-Hop DJ Kool Herc, it was also a place of excruciating poverty that many did not overcome. “When you live with someone who comes out of this type of poverty and they say ‘I will not be poor again,’ they mean it,” said Dr. Douglas. “My mom had a fourth-grade education and my dad had seventh-grade education.” Andrea says all of this to give context to a household structure that valued industriousness, work ethic, and all things that prevented the possibility of ever returning to a life of poverty. Andrea’s older sister Carol had a deep and profound impact on her life also. “My sister was a book reader. She was a Young Communist at Continued on page 6
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Continued from page 5
very white world.
Queens College. I was being exposed to these things as she was being exposed to them,” she remembered.
I was bussed to white schools. I went to Mount Holyoke with a very small number of Black students.
Carol introduced Andrea to ‘Things Fall Apart’ the book of Nigerian novelist, poet, and social critic, Chinua Achebe. It is a book about the unraveling of social norms and structures during European colonization and the struggle to maintain traditions and identity among other things. It is a story that resonates with many who seek to maintain Diasporic roots while at the same time finding meaningful existence in the broader struggle for survival.
The Arts were white. Non-profits were white. I spent a lot of my life being aware of my difference. It was as if this strange orientation was leading somewhere and was a necessary rite of passage for the experiences to come. Being able to maintain one’s sense of Blackness while navigating non-black spaces and maintaining integrity and dignity is both art and science. Andrea, early on, had developed a certain mastery.
In a sense, through this type of exposure, Carol was helping Andrea contextualize her experience as proudly Jamaican and Black in a world that would hardly ever embrace either.
Journeying Into the World of Art “I was going to the Parsons School of Design at the age of 11,” Andrea exclaimed. The Parson’s Academy is one of the most world-renowned programs for young people who have proven, early on, that they could handle Parsons’ worldclass environment and ‘fulfill their creative potential.’ This just wasn’t something that every preteen in New York City was doing. It just wasn’t.
Andrea says she was given a strong sense of the power of being black, the power of seeing black people doing things in a constant way. “It is a very grounding thing,” she said. It was absolutely necessary because outside of her home in Queens, Andrea had to learn how to survive in a
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Regardless of the fact that Andrea had some
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powerful experiences as a young person, her father had dreams of her becoming a doctor or having a career in finance. Art just didn’t seem that practical. It didn’t seem like a permanent escape route from poverty. “My very first job was a claims adjuster,” said Andrea. But this work didn’t resonate with her at a soul level because she never wanted to do anything that made money for others. It was a principled position that Andrea has worked hard to maintain throughout her professional life. “I wanted to do something meaningful and think about things deeply,” she exclaimed. Andrea went on to earn an MBA in Arts Management and had a strong desire to ensure that Black voice and thought were represented honestly and truthfully in the art world. While deciding if art was going to be her permanent vocation, Andrea worked for the United Way of New York City, which is one of the oldest and largest philanthropic and social organizations in the world. “I worked on the Management Assistance program and my specialization was strategic planning,” said Andrea. Her role there included serving as technical assistance to mainly Black-led community-based organizations in their efforts to scale and become sustainable.
tial.”
ly, her father, supported this endeavor and blessed it. “I took the thing that I loved most in my life and made it my life.”
With an earnest desire to do something that was personally In spite of the deep impact An- consequential, Andrea broke drea was having in the commu- the news to her parents that Things Come Together nities of New York City, it didn’t she was going to pursue a To date, Andrea is the only satiate her deep soul-aching Ph.D. in art history. Considering Black person with a Ph.D. in desire to impact the world of Art History from the University the high practical expectations art. Of the work, she admitted, from her Jamaican upbringing, “It felt sometimes inconsequen- surprisingly her parents, nameContinued on page 9 w w w. v i n e g a r h i l l m a g a z i n e . c o m | V I N E G A R H I L L M A G A Z I N E 7
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From Left to Right: Leslie Scott-Jones, Leah Puryear, Sherry Bryant, and Andrea Douglas
Continued from page 9 of Virginia. While writing her doctoral dissertation, Andrea spent a good portion of her time living and working in New Orleans. Her dissertation was on The Relationship of Black Intellectuals and the Arts Movements of the 1920s and 40s.
“The time I spent in New Orleans shaped what we do here at the Heritage Center today,” she said. While writing her dissertation, she also served as an adjunct professor and taught art history at Tulane University. She taught
courses on Kant and Black Intellectual Theory and Art of the Caribbean to name a few. For those wondering, Kant was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers. What Andrea had become masterful at doing was drawing parallels and synthesizing Afri-
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can diasporic thought into the often exclusionary canon of the art and intellectualism of the world. In New Orleans, Andrea met a lot of artists and boldly stated that “New Orleans felt like the center of African traditions in America.” By Andrea’s terms, it was the African Diasporic capital of America. “Cultural production was everywhere. The artistic expression was visually arresting,” she said. But she was also reminded that it was still the American south and this beauty often stood in conflict with the vestiges of structural racism. There was a sense of freedom, but then there was not. Even though she was there in the early 2000’s—pre-Katrina, the disparity of Black life was already stark. While New Orleans gave Andrea the indication that she was on the right path, there was a cosmic magnetism that little old Charlottesville had on her soul. “New Orleans was not the place I wanted to be,” she said in a revealing way. She
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was married and her husband owned a business in Charlottesville and what is more, she was offered a position to be the curator of what was then called the University Art Museum, now known as the Fralin Museum. At the museum, her primary responsibility was to diversify the collection. Andrea was the first to bring the work of Carrie Mae Weems to Charlottesville—Weems whose photographs, films, and videos focused on issues facing African Americans including racism, sexism, politics, and personal identity. Andrea was also instrumental in bringing William Christenberry’s ‘Klan Room Tableau’ to Bailey that explored the deep dark parts of southern culture that had catastrophic effects on Black people. The University Art Museum set the stage for the Heritage Center. The Heritage Center Experience Andrea, brought the weight of all of these experiences with her when she inevitably came to the
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a projection and understanding of why the history of Black Charlottesville is important both locally and nationally.”
Jefferson School African American Heritage Center. One of the things that helped Andrea to transform what is now called the Fralin Museum and construct the Heritage Center is the fact that Andrea’s entire life and orientation prepared her. “The fact that I know how to run an institution is the difference.” Andrea has had a vision of bringing theater to the African American Heritage Center since its inception. Almost serendipitously, Leslie Scott-Jones met Andrea for lunch and they came up with the initial plans to begin the Charlottesville Player’s Guild to explore the works of August Wilson. Jones said, “She wanted to do a 5-year project on August Wilson, and I finally found someone who thinks at the 50,000foot view.” On working at Heritage, ScottJones reveals, “This is the only job in my entire life where I can bring my full self. It is a space where Black people can have their say.” Leslie remembers the day DMX died and how Andrea approached it. “The day DMX died she played his music through the auditorium speaker
system.” Scott-Jones notes Andrea’s ability to prevent her formal training and education from interfering with the complexity of Black artistic expression and says, “There has never been another job where I have been able to do that without headphones. Literally hiding who I was.” In a nutshell, wherever Andrea is, there seems to be a sense of freedom for Black people to be their authentic selves. Scott-Jones emphasized that Andrea’s legacy is the preservation of Black History in Charlottesville. “It will become
As the Heritage Center continues to expand and deepen the work, Dr. Douglas continues to bring on people who understand the ethos of where she is going. Recently, she hired Sherry Bryant as the Chief Curator of Education and Digital Humanities. Bryant was most recently a teacher at Buford Middle School in Charlottesville and feels honored to be a part of ‘bringing these stories into the mainstream of the community.’ Bryant is excited to be working with the staff at Heritage Center to include Jordy Yager, Digital Humanities Fellow, and summarizes her array of sentiments with, “This is important work.” Leah Puryear serves as the board chair for the Heritage Center and is in her second two-year term. Leah, who is the director of the Upward Bound program at UVA and is on the Charlottesville City School Board, remembers Andrea from her time at Bailey. Very early on, I saw Andrea as a fierce leader for the African-American community particularly in the arts field.” Leah, who is originally from the Hampton Roads area, spoke
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Continued from page 11 briefly about how difficult it is for people who are not from Charlottesville to be accepted by those who are natives. “I am not a native Charlottesvillan. I’ve had a very difficult time. Charlottesville is a very hard nut to crack,” said Puryear. But she nonetheless feels a certain kinship with Douglas because they both have persevered to do what is necessary in spite of some of the associated challenges. Puryear says of Andrea, “I don’t think people know how hard she works. She’s in the office 7 days a week. She is a wife—and a mother. She is up all night, writing proposals. She’s always there. She eats, sleeps, and breathes the Heritage Center.” Andrea has designed and curated a space to maintain a permanent historical record of Black life and achievement in Charlottesville and must be given her flowers now. Puryear goes on, “I want us to grow the center so that she can take a real vacation.” Inevitably, as Black people all over the world, we are deeply aware of the fact that, as Chinua Achebe’s first novel suggests, things [often] fall apart. However, what seems to be an inevitability is juxtaposed against an undergirding hope that things will and do eventually—come together.
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Mayor Nikuyah Walker opens up about her agonizing decision to drop out of the city council race By Charlotte Rene Woods and Erin O’Hare of Charlottesville Tomorrow
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harlottesville Mayor Nikuyah Walker had tears in her eyes while discussing her choice to withdraw from this year’s City Council race. In an interview with Charlottesville Tomorrow over Zoom she confirmed the news she’d posted to her personal Facebook page a few minutes prior, that she had signed and submitted the official paperwork to withdraw. “Which,” she said with a sigh, “was difficult.” Her voice was peppered with sniffles. She held a tissue in her hand and closed her eyes in an attempt to hold back more tears. She took a quiet moment and a few sharp, shuddering breaths before wiping her eyes with the tissue and continuing. “I’ve been struggling since March, with leaving, making an announcement,” she said, her voice cracking. “It’s just been a hard term. “Fighting overt, covert, and inter-
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nalized racism every day, and feeling really alone while doing that, it’s been a challenge. I still get up and I do it, I do all my work, and I stay up late fighting with people, and I still stay up late and get my work done. It’s really taken a toll on me and my family. It’s been a really difficult process,” she said. Despite that, Walker said she had a hard time clicking the “send” button to file the official withdrawal form with the Virginia Department of Elections. Now, three candidates — democrats Juandiego Wade and Brian Pinkston, and independent Yas Washington — will vie for the two seats that will open next term when Walker and Heather Hill step down from the dais. Walker will not endorse their campaigns. A DIFFICULT DECISION Walker’s path toward reelection had a number of starts and stops. After announcing her intention to seek reelection in February 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic arrived a month later and her focus has largely been on public safety and
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current council affairs in the time since. Then in May of this year, following speculation as to whether or not she was still indeed running, Walker announced via Facebook Live that she was still in the race and would begin campaigning. During her May announcement, Walker discussed the stress and weight of being on council and wanting to seek a second term. “One thing I’ve learned is that really no matter who you are, if you’re Black and female or just Black, people don’t want to listen to you,” she said at that time. She also noted the temptation to prioritize herself and not seek a second term. “I’m not choosing me, even though I’m exhausted and my hair is turning gray,” Walker said in May. “My friends ask me, ‘What is your body telling you?’ and my body is telling me you are all destroying me.” But on Wednesday, she revealed that she considered resigning from council in December of 2020, “af-
ter the credit card incident and being blamed for John Blair leaving, and then fighting with them about the city manager,” she said. The start of 2021 saw challenges for the council collectively, and Walker specifically. The city grappled with finding a new city manager to replace Tarron Richardson, who resigned suddenly in September 2020. They appointed Chip Boyles on an interim basis for the year. Walker would go on to become the focal point of a credit card misuse scandal, in which there was no criminal investigation and policy was later revised for more clarity. Walker also became the focus of national attention after she wrote an explicit poem on Facebook that highlighted racial inequality within the city. Through these months, she said, she was also coping with a death in her family. “It’s just been a steady spiral since losing my grandmother,” Walker said Wednesday. “That was in December and I didn’t even have time to deal with losing one of my favorite people, and I only have three: My mom, my grandmother, and my great-grandmother. “Those women are amazing. There are a lot of people I really appreciate a lot, but those women are everything to me. I wasn’t even able to process that because of this mess,” she said through tears. Walker said she sought advice on whether to stay in the race from friends and family. These were people who, she said, joined her in trying to imagine what she calls “a different world,” one that is equitable, one that actively works toward dismantling white supremacy and all of the systems that uphold and perpetuate it. “I made the mistake of calling them,” she said with some laughter. She told them she was
considering resigning, but they discouraged such a move. “They challenged me to not give up after bringing them into the fight. So I stayed,” she said.
acknowledged that he personally “didn’t agree with her that white supremacy was at work behind every decision that every public actor makes.”
But increasingly, she said, she couldn’t see the benefit of trying for another term. She said she believes that her work toward dismantling systemic racism throughout the city is important and necessary, but she alleges that other elected and appointed officials, as well as the community as a whole, haven’t supported that work in concrete ways. That, she said, was an enormous — and ultimately impossible — burden to bear alone.
Referencing the credit card policy issue they handled earlier in the year, Snook says that the city had tried to resolve the clarity issues “quickly and without drawing attention to the alleged violations of the law.”
DIFFERING PERSPECTIVES “I have been willing to fight with everyone, and I mean everyone, if I felt the system was being upheld, through overt racism, covert racism, or internalized racist. I have called people out on it, and of course that has not made me a favorite of anyone at any one point,” she said. In response to Walker’s decision, fellow councilor Sena Magill explained in a phone call Thursday afternoon that she is sorry that Walker has felt alone and unsupported. Magill also said that from her perspective, city staff have tried to support Walker and other council members, but that recent years have been challenging — particularly for Walker. “I think this time has been very hard on everyone,” Magill said. “But I know that there are ways that it’s hard for her that I can’t even begin to understand — as being our only Black councilmember.” Charlottesville Tomorrow also reached out to other councilors for comment. Councilor Lloyd Snook asserted in an email that the rest of council supported Walker’s call for dismantling white supremacy, but
At the time, Walker discussed the situation on social media and within subsequent council meetings — aiming for transparency, she said. “Mayor Walker insisted on having the discussion openly, during which time she complained that white supremacists (like me) were just trying to stifle her work,” Snook wrote in an email. “We spent about three hours on the topic in a public meeting, after which we adopted the policies that we could have adopted quietly and without anything seeming to have been directed at her. She had insisted on the public airing of the entire mess, and in the end, the other four of us voted for the policies that corresponded with state and local law.” Meanwhile, councilor Heather Hill said that she’s confident every elected official or senior leader in Charlottesville has struggled to feel supported while “trying to do important work for our community” and that she is “sorry that this is how [Walker] has felt often.” “It takes all of us, listening to each other with an open mind, working collaboratively and respectfully, to achieve meaningful progress in dismantling systemic racism in concrete ways,” Hill said in an email. “The current environment has made progress on this and other priorities near impossible.” Walker sees it differently. She alleges that city officials, both elected and appointed, perpetu-
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“The community has to decide whether it’s going to continue to uphold systemic racism.” ate white supremacy by not actively and genuinely working to dismantle it. She said she doesn’t want to be part of that.
After Brackney’s termination, City Manager Chip Boyles issued a release stating that the city needs a chief who is “effective at building relationships.”
“I don’t want to participate in it,” she said. “I don’t want attempting this work to change me.”
Both Walker and Brackney are the first Black women to serve in their respective roles in the city. They came into their roles around the same time, in 2018, and now, their exits from high profile positions will be just months apart as well.
She also said that the city government does not value or practice transparency as much as she believes it should. THE LAST STRAW Walker’s withdrawal follows the recent termination of Charlottesville’s former police chief, RaShall Brackney, and though it was not the sole reason behind her decision to not seek reelection, she said it was a contributing factor.
Walker’s announcement came the morning after Tuesday’s night’s contentious council meeting, during which Walker attempted to discuss Brackney’s firing with fellow councilors and constituents — including a back and forth with Central Virginia PBA president and Albemarle County Police Department detective Michael Wells that ended in him hanging up.
“There’s only been a handful of people who’ve been working on breaking down institutional racism,” Walker said last week following Brackney’s firing. “We’re losing someone who is doing this work.”
A LONG NIGHT Tuesday night was a long one, Walker implied during her interview with Charlottesville Tomorrow. She made her decision then, but opted to wait until morning to announce it.
Brackney had been committed to doing reform work from within the department, said Walker. But because Brackney did not discuss that work publicly, most of the community did not see it. According to recent news releases from the city, Brackney recently terminated officers for misconduct. Following those terminations, internal department surveys and an externally-conducted survey by the Central Virginia Police Benevolent Association (PBA) found dissatisfaction within the department. Critiques in the surveys include a lack of communication between staff, lack of morale in the department, and indication for multiple officers that they planned to seek employment elsewhere.
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The last person Walker talked to before making her decision, a friend, urged her to continue, to not to pull out of the race, because “cowards quit,” and he didn’t care if she only got one vote, or if she lost, as long as she continued. She laughed when she told that story, because she knew he was encouraging, not disparaging, her. “He’s the last person I talked to about it! I was like, ‘you know what? I’m not talking to anybody else!’” Over and over again, Walker said, people have told her that she can get through this, that she’s a strong person, even when she’s told them she’s “falling the f— apart, here, people!” She’s well aware of her own strength — “people like
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to say that my only focus is equity, and I do see equity in everything, it is my primary focus, but I kick ass in every room I’m in, no matter what the topic is. I do my homework. I show up,” she said with confidence — and she’s grateful that some people see it. But, in addition to acknowledging her strength, she feels she has to be as honest with herself as she is with others. “You can get through this,” she remembered people telling her. “Okay, but I don’t feel like I can,” she replied.
we send the statues when you are upholding racism that we claim to have taken statues down to symbolize. I’ll pass,” she said. “I did believe that in 2017, that this community was finally ready to tackle what had been going on on this plantation since it was created. And even when it became clear that they did not believe in this the way they had claimed to, the pain of growing up here and the experience, and knowing that my strength, that other people don’t have it, and the experience of seeing families succumb to the conditions that’s created in this community, kept me fighting.”
Walker will serve out the rest of her term, which she noted ends December 31, 2021, at precisely 11:59 p.m. After that, she said, incredulously, “I have to like, Those people, those families, made this decision all rest or something.” the more difficult, said Walker, and she addressed that more directly in her Facebook announcement, Between now and then, she will cast votes on some writing: “Dear Black People: I feel like I’ve failed major policies, including the city’s comprehenyou. I know your struggles and I know what you face sive plan update and thus the future use land map everyday in this community. I am sorry. Every time an (FLUM), which will guide an upcoming citywide rezon- image of a little Black girl pops into my head, I fall ing. apart. I hope that at some point I can convince her that I’m not being a coward. I hope I’ve given her ‘The community has to decide if it will uphold system- some tools to survive in this callous world.” ic racism’ Walker said that the 2016 election of Donald Trump During her tenure, Walker has been criticized for as president, in combination with the various neo-Na- seeming to prioritize her Black constituents over zi and white supremacist rallies of 2017 — including those of other races. She does not find that criticism Unite the Right — showed Charlottesville some of fair. what Black people experience every day. She said she takes every opportunity she gets to “I probably naively believed that it was possible for lift up Black people, to say “you matter.” And, she them to hold on to that fear a little bit longer, even added, destroying white supremacy does not mean though I study history and know how fleeting it is,” destroying the lives of white people. she said. “That has been the challenge in this community, that When there was not a repeat of Unite the Right in some people who benefit from oppression, white suAugust 2018, Walker said that fewer people in the premacy, racism, pretend that they’re not. And other community have been willing to talk about race and white people uphold that. I come into every room equity. It’s continuing now that Joe Biden was elected and I challenge that, whether there are people in that president, she said, and she’s disappointed in that room that agree with me or not. And people have not shift away from the yet unsolved issues. had to deal with racism at this level that I have forced the community to deal with it.” “The community has to decide whether it’s going to continue to uphold systemic racism,” Walker said When asked if she’s proud of that, she laughed toward the end of the interview. Trump is gone, but through a sniffle and said she would answer that there are more like him, and those voters are still out when her head is in a different place, “when I’m not there, she said. feeling terrible” about this decision, she said. Walker pointed to Charlottesville taking down its Confederate monuments in July of this year as proof of the weakness of symbols. Charlottesville’s statues are down, but the things she said they symbolized — systemic racism and white supremacy —remain. City officials haven’t yet decided on where the statues will go, and Walker has declined an invitation to join a committee to determine that. “I don’t need to join a committee to determine where
“I hope I figure out how to continue this work,” she said, following up with a determined, “I’m sure I will.” Then her voice fell again. “But I’m also getting to a point where I don’t believe in people. I haven’t been there before, and I don’t want to get there,” she said. “I don’t want to get all the way there.” Source: Charlottesville Tomorrow
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Everybody Loves Chris
A Conversation with Comedian Chris Alan
By Sarad Davenport | Photo by Phil Provencio
F
and traumatic for Chris. “I was a smart kid, but I couldn’t fight,” he said. Chris admits of getting beat up—often. “I was never the cool kid. I would lash out with my tongue.” Chris went on to describe how he couldn’t fight to save his life, but his ability to brutally insult others was vicious and often served as his only defense.
Growing up in Rochester was often dramatic
In many respects, Chris’ upbringing was different from many of the kids in the neighborhood though. “They used to call my family the Black Griswolds,” he said. Chris’ family was intact with both parents and offered some things that many of his other peers didn’t have. While they went to public school, Chris begrudgingly admitted, “I
or many of us, when we think of Rochester, New York, we think of it as the home of Kodak (not that one), Xerox, and of course Wegmans. Yet for folks like comedian Chris Alan, it is also known for being a very divided city along racial and economic lines. Chris noted the array of fancy grocery stores in Rochester but halflaughing says, “Yeah, but they also lock the crab legs up in those grocery stores.” At this point, I’m already laughing at not only the joke but the insightful social commentary that comedian Chris Alan offers.
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“The social outcasts of the world are in comedy and in the kitchen.”
went to private school and had to wear a uniform. I got teased for wearing it—a lot.” What saved Chris was probably the fact that he was quick-witted, deflective, and mastered the art of making fun of himself before others could. “It was hard for people to make fun of me because I had already made fun of myself,” he said. It was surely great training for a comedian and falls right into the narrative of many comedians who became funny to save their own selves. For Chris, his life as a standup comedian is something of a second act. What many may not know about Chris is that he
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recently retired from the United States Air Force settling in the Charlottesville area. It offers his personal story balance in some respects and disarms folks who see him as just another person who has failed at life and is now trying their hand at comedy. Chris, in many ways, has made all the right moves and finds himself in a good space, young, black, retired and living his dream. “Making people laugh has always been something I’ve been told I can do,” said Chris. Equipped with a quick wit and the ability to capture people’s attention—quickly—is why Chris is able to make people laugh. Chris sees being a
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comedian as being in a special class of people in society so to speak. He says, “If I wasn’t into comedy, I’d be a chef in somebody’s kitchen.” He went on to talk about how both require prep and timing and says that, “The social outcasts of the world are in comedy and in the kitchen.” Chris credits his mentor, Vince Morris with being his first teacher and helping him to understand how grueling the road is for a comedian. “Vince taught me that being on the road is not as cool as it looks.” He spoke of getting $600.00 to do a show in which $200.00 went to a flight, $300.00 to the hotel and not to mention
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“I want people to want to hear my opinion. I want people to want to know my views on certain issues.” buying food. Chris admitted he had to ask himself, “Did you really make any money?” Not to mention how lonely it can be for a comedian out on the road. Being a comic certainly has its strains on family. Chris has a wife and an elementary schoolaged son. “My wife is open to me being gone,” he says. He goes on to discuss how his wife, Khalilijah has a frame of reference because she herself is a performer and her father was an activist and actor. “Being in this industry, there are traps; but she trusts me,” he said, and goes on to talk about how his mission is to keep that trust unwavering. The grind began to inevitably pay off for Chris. I asked him about what makes him hopeful about the profession and what keeps him going. “I got to open for Mark Normand and Amy Schumer.” Mark Normand has appeared on Conan, The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy
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Fallon and The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. Of course, we know Amy Schumer, famous for her role in the movie Train Wreck, who Chris opened up for in his hometown of Rochester. “I did five minutes in front of 10,000 people in my hometown.” This is when Chris knew he was truly a professional in the craft of comedy. It was personal. All of the struggles that he had in his hometown of trying to solidify and secure his identity had seemed to all come together at that moment. “I cried in the back,” Chris said with the feeling of reaching a height in life that is only done through an unusual belief in self and dedication. This is where opportunity met him. As Chris continues to travel the comedy circuit and becomes known far and wide, I asked him very simply, ‘What’s the dream?’ “I want to write on a show. I want to be touring and working as a comic,” he said. To Chris though, it’s about
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much more than being a comic. It is about having a voice and a perspective. “I want people to want to hear my opinion. I want people to want to know my views on certain issues.” Chris goes on to give a list of comics he respects such as Dave Chapelle, DL Hugley Whoopi Golberg, and Bill Burr and says, “People not only care that they are funny, they care what these people think. Comics have the ability to see all the angles. The other perspective might be more funny than how I feel, and it’s just comedy.” To keep up with Chris as he continues to rise in the world of comedy follow him at @ chrisalancomedy on Instagram or on his podcast called Negro Please Radio on all platforms. Chris recently released a comedy album called ‘Off Script’ which can be purchased and streamed on all platforms also.
VINEGAR HILL
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Energy Titan
Generating Sustainability through Wind and Hope
Contributed by Milton Steppe
R
ecently, I took a trip by boat with a group of community leaders to visit the wind farm currently under construction by Dominion Energy, just off the coast near Virginia Beach. The wind farm is an amazing engineering and architectural wonder, with turbines standing over 500 feet
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tall. When completed thousands of homes will have a new source of energy. The tour itself lasted about five hours, which allowed the opportunity to engage with the other attendees and Dominion Energy staff in conversations that literally covered a bit of everything. Through our discus-
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sions, I learned that Dominion was also focusing on sustainability back on the mainland by contributing $35 million dollars to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) through its six-year“HBCU Promise” program. HBCUs make up approximately three percent of all colleges
PACKAGES Full-Page Annual Package -4 Print full-page ad (black and white) -2 online banner ads (728x90, 970x90, or 300x500) full color- these rotate online and can be switched out throughout the month. -4 printed magazine copies
-Total cost for the year $908.00 Half-Page Annual Package -4 Print half-page ad (black and white) -2 online banner ads (728x90, 970x90, or 300x500) full color - these rotate online and can be switched out throughout the month. -4 printed magazine copies
-Total cost for the year $628.00 1/4 Page Annual Package -4 Print 1/4 page ad (black and white) -2 online banner ads (728x90, 970x90, or 300x500) full color- these rotate online and can be switched out throughout the month. -4 printed magazine copies
-Total cost for the year $508.00 NEW -Video News Post (appears in line with articles) $150.00 -Social Media (FaceBook, Instagram, & Twitter) $75.00 -Newsletter/Email Campaign (1-3 weekly) $75.00 -YouTube Page $75.00 -Total cost for the year $1,080.00
Ad Designs Print and online banner ad designs are $325.00 A la carte $150.00 2 Mock ups 2 Revisions
Vinegar Hill Magazine | www.vinegarhillmagazine.com | 434.466.5718
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HBCUs also have a proven track record for setting students up for success. AN HBCU graduate can expect to earn an additional $927,000 in their lifetime. and universities in the United States, while enrolling ten percent of all African American students and producing nearly twenty percent of all African American graduates. But most face financial hurdles along the way, with seventy-two percent taking on debt as they work and fight to complete their degrees. HBCUs also have a proven track record for setting students up for success. AN HBCU graduate can expect to earn an additional $927,000 in their lifetime–which is 56 percent more than they would without an HBCU degree or certificate– and eight HBCUs were among the top twenty institutions to award the most science and engi-
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neering bachelors degrees between 2008-2012. Dominion’s HBCU Promise program is a substantial investment into the lives of black people and black institutions, with $25 million in funding being provided to select universities in Virginia, Ohio, North Carolina and South Carolina, and an additional $10 million scholarship fund that will support African American and other minority students across the company’s service territory. Dominion Energy’s contribution is a major investment not only for the long-term sustainability of HBCUs, but also for generating greater opportunity for black and other minority students to pursue the American dream through quality higher education accessibility.
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Circa 1956 at The HIPP on the famous 2nd Street in Richmond, Virginia
Hidden In Plain Site: Richmond is a VR exploration of distinct but easy to overlook sites around Richmond, VA, that tells the story of the Black experience throughout history. hiddeninplainsite.org The HiPS™ VR Experience is curated by: TM
LET’S MAKE HISTORY ™
Just visit hiddeninplainsite.org and
EXPERIENCE HiPS™ IN THREE WAYS! OCULUS
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